Apple Urges Users To Update iOS Due To Serious Vulnerability, Trident

Apple released an unexpected update to iOS which is is urging all users to upgrade to as soon as possible due to vulnerabilities that may exist. The issue would allow the device to be remotely controlled and to run malicious code. The updated iOS version 9.3.5 patches critical exploits that could allow the device to be infected and for someone to remotely track and record activity. The Citizen Lab has been working with human rights and pro-democracy activist Ahmed Mansoor. He alerted them that he was allegedly targeted. Read an excerpt from the report below.

"…Mansoor received SMS text messages on his iPhone promising “new secrets” about detainees tortured in UAE jails if he clicked on an included link. Instead of clicking, Mansoor sent the messages to Citizen Lab researchers. We recognized the links as belonging to an exploit infrastructure connected to NSO Group, an Israel-based “cyber war” company that sells Pegasus, a government-exclusive “lawful intercept” spyware product. NSO Group is reportedly owned by an American venture capital firm, Francisco Partners Management.

    The ensuing investigation, a collaboration between researchers from Citizen Lab and from Lookout Security, determined that the links led to a chain of zero-day exploits (“zero-days”) that would have remotely jailbroken Mansoor’s stock iPhone 6 and installed sophisticated spyware. We are calling this exploit chain Trident."

Go HERE to see the report from The Citizen Lab. If you have an Apple iOS device, iPhone or iPad, then be sure to upgrade it to iOS 9.3.5.